The Tiger and the Firefly
by Yuki Snow and Silver Ganymede
Summary: Sailor MoonFruits Basket. All she'd ever wanted was a friend, a friend as close to her as ChibiUsa had been, even if she'd have to travel to another dimension for that wish to come true. Little did she know that it would...
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: We do not own Sailor Moon or Fruits Basket.

_**(A.N: This is based on the manga version of Fruits Basket, so be warned. There may be some spoilers in here too, so be wary of that.)**_

The Tiger and the Firefly  
By Yuki Snow and Silver Ganymede

Prologue

Violet eyes surveyed the scene around them with both sadness and envy as the young girl walked home from school. People were laughing and talking happily in their groups, but they all gave her a wide berth. Of course they would; to them she was nothing more than a 'freak' and while this hurt her she found herself agreeing.

After all, she was a Princess of an alien planet and a soldier who guarded life and death, rebirth and destruction; of course she was a 'freak', no wonder they avoided her. Of course, Chibi-Usa had been there for her, but she was gone now, gone back to the thirtieth century where her home truly was, and she, Hotaru, was alone again, like she was before all of this happened.

Hotaru had hoped that starting at Juuban Junior High last year would have given her a chance to make some friends, but it hadn't. People just avoided her; they could sense something was not right about her, she knew it. And now, just as she had started her second year, the bullying had begun again. She knew that their insults really shouldn't have bothered her but, in all truth, they did and they still hurt deeply. If anything, it was worse than how it used to be.

Hotaru looked up at the blooming Sakura trees that were all around her, closed her eyes, and made a wish that she knew would probably never come true. Not that she did not believe that magic existed---how could she not? She was a sailor senshi and so to deny magic's existence would be both foolish and pointless, but she just knew. She had only had one friend in her entire life and she was gone; so that's what she wished for… a friend. A friend as true and loyal as Chibi-Usa had been. She wanted nothing more than the friendship of another, perhaps one such as herself, even if she had to travel to another dimension to make the wish come true…

Little did she know that that just might happen…

* * *

She didn't feel much like going home that day. No matter what they said, she knew she was nothing more than a burden to everyone at home. Akito had said so, and she knew that Akito was always right. Akito _was_ right, and that's one of the reasons she despised Akito.

No, she didn't want to go home, but even her home was better than school. She had dreaded beginning at the all-girl's junior-high Akito had insisted she go to; she wouldn't know anybody there. Had she been able to go to a normal junior-high at least she wouldn't have been alone this year – Hiro was only one grade below her – but because she was in an all-girl's school he'd never be there to keep the bullies away, not like he would if they went to the same school…

Yes, there were many bullies at her school, and all of them targeted her, little Sohma Kisa. And the worst thing was that no one did anything about it. It was a sad situation, and not something that Kisa could fix by herself.

'Everyone thinks that girls as 'nice' as they are and wouldn't even hurt a fly' Kisa mentally spat. 'I wonder what would happen if they saw how wrong they were…'

Kisa shook her head and directed her thoughts away from the matter; she was teased enough about her hair and her eyes and just about everything else all day long, so why dwell on it outside of school as well? It would only satisfy them more, because they would know they were getting to more than they ever thought they could.

A blossom from the sakura tree above her floated down and she caught it in her hand. Such beautiful things, the sakura blossoms were.

'I wonder how many people realise that?' she mused, staring at the delicate blossom she held in her hand. 'I know there are others that take time to look at these things. I only wish I had a friend whom I could share my thoughts with, no matter how trivial the thoughts. That's all I wish for… a friend.'

She stood up and walked away; leaving the sakura blossom she had been holding to float away into the sky.

* * *

A hall of mirrors, everlasting, eternal and filled with voids of swirling mists. Within this foreboding darkness stood a woman. Her age would have been impossible to guess, though she appeared no more than in her early twenties, her dark crimson eyes held wisdom beyond measure, the wisdom of the ancients.

She saw these two realities, these two young girls. So similar they were, both possessed by ancient spirits, both shunned and both friendless amongst their peers.

"Soon that shall change," she whispered. "Soon…very soon…" She let her staff with its garnet orb fall to the floor as she turned and spoke to the air itself, as there was no one else within the Halls of Time, "I think that it is time to pay some old friends a visit," the guardian whispered and she left the Hall of Mirrors and its swirling mists as the Stream of Time continued to flow on it's predestined course…


	2. Chapter One

Chapter One 

The mists of time swirled as restlessly as ever as two of the sailor senshi walked through the damned Halls of Chronos. The first, the taller of the two, had short sandy hair and navy eyes that darted around suspiciously, seemingly looking for anything out of the ordinary. She seemed unusually tense and held a glowing sword in her right hand. If it hadn't been glowing, you would have seen the multicoloured semi-precious gems embedded into the sword.

The second of the senshi was smaller and had hair and eyes that reflected both her emotions and power. Calmness: a collection of many variations of turquoise. However her normally calm gaze had become stern and hardened as she stared into a navy coloured mirror that bore the radiant symbol of Neptune.

"So, you are here," a voice spoke from within the mists. A woman came into view. Her hair was of such a shade that one could say it was black, another could say it was green and there would be no argument. Her eyes stood in severe contrast to her hair, as they were red as blood and icy and wise infinitely beyond her external youth.

"Why have you summoned us here Pluto?" the smaller senshi inquired. "The oceans are restless; something is soon to happen, something that shall affect the fate of more than one world. This much the Mirror has shown me, but as for the rest, I don't know…."

"What does this have to do with us?" the other asked bluntly. "Is there a new enemy? If so why are you warning us now; you never did in the past."

The third of their company spoke as she fixed her red eyes on those of her companions. She sighed deeply and spoke, "No, Uranus, Neptune, there is no new enemies as of now; there is no threat to us all. However if we do not act quickly then a tragedy will strike us and one of our number will be lost… and so will another. But if I work quickly enough than two lives will be saved… two cursed lives made more sufferable…"

"But Pluto, what does this have to do with us?" the taller, Uranus, repeated her question, slightly annoyed by Pluto's cryptic response.

"It has everything to do with us," Pluto replied, "But I will have to leave this post in order to carry out what I am obligated do. I want you two to take my position as guardian while I am gone."

Uranus frowned, "Haven't you left the Gates unattended before though?"

"No" Pluto replied, "I left a shade of my soul here then, but since the fight against Chaos I lost my power to do that; the stint as a servant of evil – albeit an unwilling one – caused the Council of Time to relieve that power from me." She paused and looked up at her companions. "Please, I beg of you."

Neptune nodded silently and Uranus followed her lead; Pluto was not one to beg for anything, so the circumstances they were in must have been direr than either on of them could ever know.

"Thank you," Pluto whispered. "Here, let me show you both whom I must help; then you may begin to understand what I must do, who I must help, and why it affects you both as deeply as it does me." She raised one hand and her garnet orb began to shine, emanating a series of images, all of which showed one girl. She seemed quite small for her age and had blonde hair and dark eyes: she also seemed depressed and silent. "This is Sohma Kisa; she is the Tiger."

"The Tiger?" Uranus questioned.

"The Tiger of the zodiac: she is cursed. Cursed to be possessed by the Tiger's spirit," Pluto replied. "Now let me show you the second whom I must help." One again images came from the Garnet Orb, but this time Uranus and Neptune knew exactly whom the girl in question was.

"So now you see. I must save both the Tiger and the Firefly," Pluto whispered.

The other two senshi nodded, sighing; they knew exactly what would happen if Pluto did not help. She had already died three times and been reborn; she would die again, but not if they could help it. They had to save the lives of the Tiger, Sohma Kisa, and the one they considered their own… the Firefly, Tomoe Hotaru.

* * *

Hotaru sat on the sofa staring mindlessly at whatever dumb game show was playing on the TV. She was so bored; she wished Rini would come back; she had always had boring holidays since her pink-haired friend had returned to her own time. Well she got to see the Inner Senshi sometimes, but nothing else really. She didn't have any friends at school and was sure that there was no way she would be able to make any anyway; she always seemed to scare others away. She didn't understand it. Her healing power was good. Why did people think she could hurt them with it?

Hotaru turned back to the TV in her boredom and flicked the channel. Great, yet another game show: she sighed in boredom. She really wasn't in the mood to be doing anything that required thinking, so TV seemed the perfect answer for once. Nothing unusual had happened that day; no youma had appeared for years, since Galaxia had been defeated. In fact, Hotaru mused, the only youma around were the kids at her school. She sighed at how bitter and jaded her thoughts seemed but still that acrimony didn't change the fact that it was true.

She sighed again and rested her head on the arm of the sofa. Thank whatever gods there were that spring break had finally started. If she had had to have another day like the ones she had recently been forced to undergo… She shook the thoughts out of her head once more; it was no use to dwell on the utter stupidity of people's minds.

"Maybe I'll be allowed to move to another school for eighth grade" Hotaru mused aloud. It would be great to do that, but she doubted that it would ever happen.

"Well maybe you will" a voice replied. Hotaru's violet eyes widened; that couldn't the person she thought it was… could it? She turned around and saw Setsuna standing in the doorway of the living room.

"Setsuna-mama!" Hotaru said feeling a true smile grace her face for the first time in months. "What are you doing back? I didn't think you were coming back from the Gates for another month or so…"

Setsuna smiled slightly and shook her head.

"I'm not going to be home for long," the enigmatic woman replied quietly and Hotaru's face fell. "But then again neither are you," she added.

"What?" Hotaru asked quietly.

"I'm not staying here for much longer and neither are you," Setsuna replied. "We're leaving."

"Are we leaving Japan?" Hotaru asked curiously.

"No and yes," Setsuna replied and Hotaru saw that she had that look on her face that plainly said 'I know a lot more than you do about this but you'll find out soon.' Hotaru hated it when Setsuna got that look on her face; it was infuriating.

"Go and pack a couple of bags; we leave tomorrow," Setsuna said, still not telling Hotaru _where _exactly they were going.

Hotaru sighed and resigned herself to the fact that she would have to wait a while to find out. She turned the TV off, deciding that anything would be preferable to watching another game show, and went to pack her bags for well, wherever it was they were going.

* * *

It was cold: that was the only thought that went through Hotaru's mind. It was _really _cold. She reached over to grab her comforter and found it wasn't there. Neither was her pillow. Then her mind registered that she was on the floor.

Hotaru sat up and blinked, holding a hand to her head as she tried to figure out what the heck was going on.

The door opened and Setsuna came into Hotaru's room.

"Are you still not up?" the crimson eyed time guardian asked. "I've been calling you for twenty minutes."

"Why are we getting up so early anyway," Hotaru grumbled, standing up and glaring at her foster parent as her mind registered that not only was it cold but it was still _dark _outside too.

"Don't you want to go?" Setsuna asked, even though she knew that Hotaru would come without a second thought.

"Go where?"

"To the place I mentioned yesterday."

Hotaru remembered then, and she also remembered that Setsuna had never actually said where they were going or indeed _when _they were going. Grumpily, Hotaru though about this until a voice rang out, breaking her train of thought.

"So, do you want breakfast or not?"

Hotaru groaned; wherever they were going it had better be worth it.

* * *

Hotaru shivered as they stood outside in the garden in the freezing morning air. She was annoyed as she noticed that Setsuna seemed completely unaware of the cold, though she was dressed more for summer than spring. She seemed unaffected by the unusually cold March weather.

"We're ready," Setsuna whispered as though she had heard some sort of signal.

"Ready for what?" Hotaru asked as Setsuna grabbed her hand. Setsuna began to speak in a completely alien tongue, which Hotaru somehow knew was as ancient as the Time Guardian herself.

"Hold on to me tightly," Setsuna said as she stopped chanting. Hotaru was about to ask why but before she could she started feeling extremely dizzy. She tried to close her eyes but before she could, an abyss of total nothingness surrounded her.


	3. Chapter Two

Sohma Kisa, the Tiger, was walking home from school that day with tears in her eyes and her head bowed in sorrow. Today had been even more unbearable than most: she wished, more so than ever, that she was able to stand up for herself. In Kisa's mind, she knew she could, but shyness and passiveness would always take over before any other emotion even made its way to her brain.

Today, people had been meaner than ever before. Now, her whole class, no, her whole _grade_ was calling her a slut because of some stupid rumor that had started. Someone in the all-boys junior high school next door was claiming to have seduced her without even trying….Why were boys such morons? That brat had even had the nerve to say that _she _had come onto _him_. The idiotic rumor had spread to his girlfriend – 'More like make-out buddy,' Kisa thought with disgust – and the girl had slapped her, hard. What unnerved Kisa is that it felt like if she hadn't dodged partly out of the way, it would have been worse than Akito's abuse. Following up the slap were a string of many curses, courtesy of the girl and her mindless 'friends'.

Now Kisa was just mulling it over in her mind, over and over again, staring at her feet the entire time. When she finally did look up, she noted that her feet had carried her right past her home to the park she always went to, to look at the cherry blossoms during the spring. There was someone in the place that she always sat at though. It was strange; the girl was the only one in the park besides Kisa. People were usually milling around in the park around now. Yes, people would walk trough the park with out even bothering to gaze up and admire the beauty of it all.

This girl though…she was different. She was admiring the beauty for what if was and not just acknowledging the fact that it was there. This girl sat there deep in thought, mouthing her thoughts to herself while still staring at the cherry blossom trees. This was not unlike what Kisa liked to do sometimes.

Kisa didn't think about how long she had been staring at the girl until she twisted around and saw her. She bolted right then, ignoring Kisa's stunned face.

Kisa remembered only one feature of the girl: violet eyes. As it seemed though, Kisa never really saw her, just imagined her, because right then, all the people she hadn't seen, were there, all around her, in every corner of the park.

This is what happened: Setsuna had stopped time…in a way. Everyone was doing everything like usual, but only because Kisa was the only one time stopped for. The park had seemed empty to Kisa because time had stopped in her mind, and her mind alone. Setsuna had projected an image of Hotaru, just for Kisa to see. She had started the bond of the two girls, even though only one even had the smallest clue they were to meet.

Hotaru awoke with a haze of irredescent lavender light surrounding her. Saturn had awoken in this world, though she would probably, never in this lifetime, have to use her senshi powers. Slowly, as Hotaru lay in bed, the Saturnian coloration (1) went away, leaving her to her own devices.

"Glad to see you're awake," Setsuna said from the other side of the room, not long after Hotaru had awoken.

"Yeah," Hotaru muttered, "What hit me?" Hotaru was so disorientated at the moment that she couldn't even remember the events of the previous day.  
"I'll explain it," Setsuna sighed, not really feeling up to the job, "I asked you if you wanted to come with me to another dimension, and you agreed. That's about all there is to it. You weren't happy where we used to be." Setsuna was not being completely truthful, but that was all Hotaru needed to know right now.

"Okay…" Hotaru muttered, thinking that there would be a much longer explanation than that, but just brushed it off. She wasn't in the mood to discern what she could get out of Setsuna. Not now, but maybe later.

"Anyway, Hotaru, go get dressed. You need to eat breakfast, and then we're going to go meet someone, so be quick about it. I let you sleep in for as long as I could," Setsuna seemed quite serious about this matter, but then again, she always seemed serious. It was almost a sheer impossibility for her not to be, Hotaru mused. Well, there was a good reason for Setsuna's almost unnatural seriousness, wasn't there?

Hotaru quickly dressed when she found her normal dark apparel in the dresser, whaich stood not far from the bed she had been sleeping on…in fact, this room was almost an exact replica of hers, color wise, but she would have to replace all the little knick-knacks that used to be there.

When Hotaru walked out of her room, she was greeted with a hallway like any other, though it was somewhat smaller than the one in her old home back in her world…

It was then that she finally realised it; she _wasn't _in her own dimension; the aura here was… different… She shook away her shock and went back to observing the place that was to be her home for her stay in this world.

It was apparent that they weren't in a large house; more like a medium sized apartment. The walls were a light coffee color, which seemed odd to her because she was so used to white walls. Walking out of the hallway, she found the living room, which had a small kitchen attached to it. Again, the walls were a light coffee color, and the cabinets were a similar shade. To say that this place was in pretty desparate need of redecorating would have been an understatement…

'Well, I guess I might as well do as Setsuna-mama wanted me to,' Hotaru rolled her eyes, not too into the idea of eating right away, but she got over it. Grabbing cereal out of the strangely overstocked cabinet, and milk out of the fridge, and all the other necessities for a bowl of cereal, she began eating. 'Yuck,' she thought, 'Setsuna has really crappy choice in cereal. Couldn't she have got something that tasted a little better than cardboard?'

It didn't take long for Hotaru to finish, and that made Setsuna slightly happier. That meant that they wouldn't be late to visit her old friend. Introductions needed to be made, and that would take a while, with the amount of people she would need to meet. 'Well,' Setsuna thought, 'I suppose it's now the right time for me to take her to meet _them_.'

* * *

_(1) When Saturn's full powers are awoken, her colouration changes from its usual black-violet hair and violet eyes to being bright violet hair and eyes. Her symbol also glows, giving her an almost ethereal apperence._


End file.
